Five Things About Dean
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: Five things no one knows about Dean... not even his family. Companion piece to "Five Things About Sam"


Title: Five Things About Dean

Author: MissAnnThropic

LiveJournal: miss_annthropic(dot)livejournal(dot)com

Summary: Five things no one knows about Dean… not even his family. Companion piece to "Five Things About Sam"

Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching DVDs of her favorite shows :(

Author's Note: I still don't like 'five things' fics much, but having done one for Sam, it just seemed like I HAD to do one for Dean, too.

* * *

1.

The day before the fire, Dean had a nightmare about a man with yellow eyes trying to steal Sammy. Mom and Dad couldn't stop him, and Sammy was crying so hard his little face was red, but the man with yellow eyes still scooped him up and took him away.

Dean woke up gasping for air, scared and alone.

He snuck out of his big boy bed and out into the hallway.

Instead of crawling into bed with his parents like most four-and-half-year-olds would do after a nightmare, he went to his brother's nursery and climbed up into Sam's crib. Sammy woke up and fussed a little, but when he recognized it was just his big brother in the crib with him, he forwent wailing and opted for open staring.

Dean snuggled down in the blankets next to his baby brother and wrapped an arm around him. "Shhh… it's okay, Sammy. I won't let him get you."

Sammy smiled toothlessly at Dean and balled up a baby fist in Dean's shirt and refused to let go.

Dean didn't tell his parents about the nightmare the next day, even when Mom tried to cajole him with cookies because she knew something must have upset Dean to make her big boy crawl into the baby's crib in the middle of the night, but Dean wouldn't talk about the bad man. Because if you talked about a dream, it might come true… Dean was sure that was how it worked. He didn't want the man with yellow eyes to come true, so Dean kept his nightmare a secret.

And after the fire, he couldn't tell Dad. Because he had promised Sammy nothing would get _him_, but he hadn't promised to protect Mom, too. Then, later, he couldn't tell Dad because Dean saw the way Dad treated unnatural things, and Dean was afraid to tell him that his son had dreamed the yellow-eyed man before he killed Mom.

Dean knew that John Winchester had always assumed Dean's extreme protectiveness over Sam, even to the point of ignoring his own best interests, had come about because of being asked to save Sam from the fire.

But that fiercely protective big brother emerged before the fire, when Dean turned his back on the promise of a comforting hug from Mom and Dad to chase away his nightmare in favor of bunking with Sam in his crib to make sure nothing got him.

* * *

2.

When Dean was sixteen, he packed his and Sam's bags. He was going to run away, and he was going to take Sam with him. He had a half-ass plan, and it would involve lying about his age so no one would try to take Sam from him, but Dean knew he could pull it off. He'd been faking his age for years, ever since he was fourteen and John was too concussed to drive himself, so he was sure he could manage.

He wanted out for Sam's sake. His little brother had been hurt, _again_, while on a hunt with John and Dean. Stitches. It wasn't that bad, really. Both Winchester boys had had worse. But while Dean sat there holding Sam's hand while Dad stitched up the wound on Sam's back, the kid trying with everything he had not to cry, something finally snapped in Dean.

Sam was only twelve years old. He shouldn't have to grit his teeth through a home stitch job. He shouldn't be in the kind of danger John asked his sons to be in. Sam didn't even _want_ to be part of the hunt.

For years Dean was gung-ho for the hunt, and for years he coaxed Sam into going along after John had flat-out ordered it, but that night watching John patch together Sam's bloody back, Dean just had enough.

John would never give up the hunt, Dean knew that.

But Dean would… to take Sam away from it.

Dean had all their things ready to go and was just about to rouse Sam to help him out the door when John came home earlier than expected.

Dean thought he'd just have to wait until tomorrow, but he was still intent on getting Sam out.

Dean crept silently into the living room of their crappy apartment, just to see… and he froze when he saw John. The older hunter was folded on the couch, elbows on his knees, clasped hands pressed to his forehead, his head bowed, and his eyes closed. John didn't cry, but Dean knew what his father looked like when he was on the edge of meltdown.

Dean went back to the room he shared with Sam and unpacked their things.

Dean let himself get so wrapped up in what Sam needed, but John needed him, too.

* * *

3.

Dean knew about the boy Sam kissed when he was fourteen.

* * *

4.

Dean told Sam that John went to check up on him while Sam was at Stanford.

John never had.

It had always been Dean.

* * *

5.

Three days before the fire that killed Jessica, Dean dreamed of the yellow-eyed man again. Like the first time, in the dream he was after Sam.

Dean had been trying to track down John, but when he woke up from the nightmare, he hauled ass to California and made up an excuse for Sam to leave with him. He wasn't going to take no for an answer.

That was why Dean had waited for Sam to go inside the apartment then sat in the Impala and kept watch.

It was how he was there to break down the door when the fire erupted in the bedroom.

That was why Dean was there to pull his brother from the fire for a second time.

Dean told himself that if he had suspected that the yellow-eyed man would take Jess in Sam's place, he would have done something to save her, too.

But Dean had thought only Sam was in danger. The omission was willful. He had only _wanted_ to worry about Sam. His only concern was keeping his brother safe.

Afterward, Dean always thought that, in some strange sense, one person had to die that night.

Much as it tortured Sam, Dean was glad it had been Jess.

* * *

END


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